RESOLVED: Lost steps when syncing multiple trackers

[MatthewFitbit]

6/14 Update: This issue should now be resolved. If you previously unpaired a secondary tracker, we encourage you to pair it back to your account and resume using multiple devices.

Thanks everyone for your assistance with investigation, as well as your patience while we worked to get this corrected.

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We are aware that some customers are seeing a decrease in steps when syncing with multiple trackers. Our team is investigating this situation, and working to ensure that multiple trackers on a single account are able to sync without issue.

If this has affected you, we recommend having only a single tracker paired to your account until it is resolved. We will update this thread when we have an update.

Apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience!

[RevHiD]

I agree! If they don't fix it soon I'll just switch to my Apple Watch although I WAS enjoying Fitbit's fashion options, battery life, and data reporting. If they give me a reason to investigate the tracking apps for the Apple Watch, I'm not looking back.

[olegdulin]

Just reproduced it, lost 4000+ steps!

i was wearing Flex 2 all morning, got home, it reset down to what Charge 2 had on it.

what... the.. hell...

Anyone from Fitbit care to help?

[olegdulin]

I am hold with FitBit support. Here is what she is trying to convince me of:

1) When two trackers try to sync at the same time they clobber each other. So she recommends that I run as far away as I can from one of them so they don't do that.

That is B/S. I pointed out that multiple trackers syncing with same phone worked fine just a week ago. This problem started after the last app update, I am sure of that.

She continues:

2) The tracker with more features overwrites the tracker with less features.

That too is B/S. They worked fine a week ago.

If she is right, then it defeats the usefulness of Fitbit for me. One of the nice things was that I could have multiple devices with same account. Turns out that it is nearly impossible to have multiple devices syncing with same account without clobbering each other.

I escalated this and I am on hold while she investigates some more.

Regards,

Oleg

[olegdulin]

Just spent almost an hour on the phone with them.

This article here is false: https://blog.fitbit.com/sync-multiple-trackers-to-your-fitbit-account-with-multi-tracker-support/

As per the rep I spoke with, the iOS app cannot reliably sync with more than one tracker on the account at a time. That is absurd and misleading. I asked her to escalate this issue because, frankly, this defeats one of the reason I have a fitbit.

[RevHiD]

Thanks for spending your time on this. Looks like I'm done with Fitbit.

[roger_heslop]

It's not just iOS, I'm using android with same issue, thanks for the reply.  I can also confirm a lot of what you're saying from my own experience.

[adamtaylad]

There are a good number of threads going up in the Charge 2 section about this issue including my own and everyone says the same as you that it has only recently started happening. I've lost 20,000 steps in 2 days due to this.

[olegdulin]

Thanks. When I was on the phone with them they said nobody else reported the issue. So if you guys are having this problem, call them!

[Fitgal88]

I started having the exact same issues yesterday. My active hours show 7 and my steps are only showing 1570.  Having 2 worked perfectly until yesterday.

[SunsetRunner]

I am having exactly the same issues.  Going back on my dashboard data, I can see the issues happened 1 week ago. The dashboard deleted all my steps from the Flex for the past week!!! Very frustrating. 

[SunsetRunner]

I'm having the same problem for a few days now. I lost over 8k yesterday and today I just lost 10k. And I can assure you, yesterday was the first time that ive had this issue, and I have 4 fitbits on my account.

[Twinfit]

So nice to hear it's not just me!! Just happened 3 days in a row. BS!! I have an Alta and Charge HR. Do the powers that be ever read these posts!! This is unacceptable and people are going to abandon Fitbit if they don't correct it. 

[SpatialFX]

Hi there,

I recently got a Flex 2 in addition to my Charge 2 for swimming. I've read the multiple tracker help article and followed those instructions but I'm still having issues.

Basically, whether I'm wearing my Charge 2 or not, the app will ALWAYS default to whatever steps my Charge 2 has, once it is in range.

As an example, here's what I did today:

1. I had about 9,800 steps when i took off my charge 2 and put on my flex 2. 
2. Left my charge 2 in my closet at home while I went for a walk to to the store with my flex 2, bringing my total to about 12,000 steps.
3. Before returning home, I synced my Flex 2. Everything updated correctly, the web dashboard showed the updated number of steps.
4. I got home and synced again, and the Fitbit app grabbed my charge 2 data, synced those steps, so now I'm back down to 9,800 steps. Very, very frustrating.

What could I possibly be doing wrong? I've restarted both of my trackers but that doesn't seem to have helped. Is @DerekS available to comment?

Thanks,

Grant

[LZeeW]

@SpatialFX  You are not doing anything wrong and you are not alone.  Other users are having problems with multiple trackers.  Members of the Community Council who use multiple trackers have alerted the Moderators. 

I'm not using multiple trackers at this time, but if I were, I would want this fixed as soon as possible.

[olegdulin]

Call support and nag them. When I called about this issue yesterday they told me it doesn't exist since no one else reported it. 

[LamboHK]

I had the same problem since 3 days ago, and just spent hours with their support, but seems like they are still clueless how this has happened. I can see the data in the apps if I go into details step counts, but not showing on the dash board.

[LamboHK]

I have the same problem with my Flex 2 and Charge 2. It used to work fine until this week. Customer support weren't able to assist. Charge 2 basically overwrites whatever I did with my flex 2. I hope they are able to fix this ASAP. I hope their Admin or customer support will acknowledge and take action to this bug.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @LamboHK, @olegdulin, @Twinfit, @SunsetRunner, @SunsetRunner, and others, do you have a Flex 2?

I believe this is an issue with multiple trackers and the Flex 2.  I would siggest logging this with Fitbit Customer Support at help.fitbit.com so that they can be aware if this new problem.  

Previously multiple tracker support worked well, but it seems that it  is currently not working with Flex 2.

Apologies if you do not have at least 2 trackers and one if them is a Flex 2.

[olegdulin]

@Julia_G I have done this yesterday, spent an hour with them on the phone getting BS responses and absurd solutions that either required me to wake up at midnight to swap trackers or running a block away from my house to be far away from one of them when syncing. I also reached out to them via Twitter.

I too suspect this has something to do with Flex 2 and I removed it from my account. Going to wait and see, and I may have to return the Flex 2 if there is no quick resolution. If this issue is not resolved fast (and I mean, FAST), one main reasons I bought the Flex 2 in the first place is lost. I wanted to do exactly what they said on their website -- wear Flex 2 during the day, and Charge 2 at night and during workouts.

[xuab]

I have 2 Fitbits- a Flex 2 and Alta.   I use the Flex 2 when I need a waterproof device.  Today, I put on the Flex in the morning and had about 17,000 steps.  I left the Alta at home.  When I returned home, I looked at my steps and the app automatically synced both of my devices.  The Alta was sitting on the charger, but the app overwrote the data from the Alta and showed I only had 400 steps for the day which was my total wearing Alta in the morning.  I spoke with support, and they said I should have my devices farther apart when I sync them.  I'm not sure how to do that as I was in my bedroom with the Flex and the Alta was in my kitchen.  I cannot control which device syncs.  Essentially, support told me I needed to be "really far away" when I sync a device.  That makes no sense to me.  If you support multiple devices, the software should be smart enough to sync them serially and not at the same time.  I should not have to worry about where in my home the devices are.  I did manually add my steps but that does nothing for my work challenge and my 7-day friends report.  I feel like I wasted $100 in buying a device so I had a waterproof one if I can't trust that the sync will work.  Is there a way to make having multiple devices sync data consistently?